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Last Saturday, May 21, I walked almost the entire length of the Golden Horn. My goal was to visit a village of Muslim pilgrimage, Eyüp, and check out some interesting sites along the way. To get there, I would pass through the neighborhoods of Fatih, Fener and Balat. These districts are a reminder that for centuries after the Muslim conquest, Christians and Jews made up about 40% of Istanbul’s population. It was a beautiful, clear day with a light breeze that made the walking easy. (OK, what made the walking easy was because the sidewalk is absolutely flat, free of dogs and tourists, and the traffic was light.)
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The Golden Horn looks great on maps, but it is very sad when seen in person. It is a flooded river valley that flows southeast into the Bosphorous, a natural harbor that first attracted settlers over 9,000 years ago. The Horn eventually enabled Constantinople to become a powerful and very rich port. Quote: "According to legend, the Byzantines threw so many valuables into it during the Ottoman conquest that the waters glistened with gold." Now, it resembles the Seattle Ship Canal, polluted and lined by empty, rusting ships, warehouses, bridges and docks. Seagulls perch and preen in serene boredom upon these modern, iron-oxide relics.
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I began my walk in Karakoy ("dark village"), on the northern side of the estuary. I crossed the Galata Bridge for the first time on foot. This bridge was constructed approximately where the chain was laid across the Horn to protect the Italian ships during the siege of 1453. It offers a splendid view of Istanbul’s seven hills, each bristling with minarets. It was a good day for fishing -- all the plastic buckets I passed contained suffocating anchovies hauled in by poles stout enough to tame tarpon.
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Once I had reached the end of the bridge and turned northwest, and had fought my way through the crowds of tourists surrounding the New Mosque and Spice Bazaar, I entered a shadowy valley created by walls of rusty corrugated tin on my right, mounted by spirals of concertina wire, and over 40 tour buses parked on my left. (Walking Brain: Why the concertina wire? There’s nothing but dilapidated warehouses over there. [Perhaps to keep out the non-existent homeless people.] And why is it called concertina wire? I thought a concertina was a small accordion. [Maybe the wires holding open the folds of the bellows mechanisms are interwoven.] Did Vivaldi compose a concerto for concertina? [Probably not.] But I bet Hindemith did! [Walking Brain does not have a sidewalk to follow, like I do.])
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The district of Fatih was named after Mehmed II, the Conqueror (Fatih). Its crowning monument is a mosque originally built in 1470, destroyed in an earthquake in 1766, and immediately rebuilt in baroque style. It is one of the largest kulliye (collection of buildings surrounding a mosque) in the city, with 8 medresses (Muslim theological schools), a hammam (Turkish public bath), a han (office block) and a hastane (hospital). For being such an impressive holy site, I was intrigued by the number of roaming roosters and hens and the amount of graffiti. (Walking Brain: Why is there so much graffiti? One of the first things that struck me upon arriving in Istanbul was the lack of graffiti compared to other large cities. Why here in this profoundly Muslim site? [Perhaps there is neither money nor incentive for removal.])
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I walked on into the Fener ("lighthouse") district. A shoe-shine guy brushed past me and accidentally dropped a brush. I called to him, picked up the brush and handed it back to him. He thanked me profusely, shook my hand, called me "a gentleman," and offered to give me a free sandal shine. I was feeling pretty good about myself by that time, so I thought, 'Sure, why not?' Then he told me that he was a Kurd from Ankara and couldn’t get a break in Istanbul, and that his wife was still in Ankara with his five children, one of whom was in the hospital. Then he asked me to pay for the shine. Duped again! I gave him my pocket change and continued on.
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My next stop was the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Nominally the head of the whole G.O. church, the Patriarch is now shepherd to a diminishing flock in and around Istanbul. The Patriarchate is all that remains of what was once a thriving Greek enclave, where many wealthy residents rose to positions of prominence in the Ottoman Empire. I walked up a steep incline and entered the Patriarchate through a side door. The main door was welded shut in memory of Patriarch Gregory V (I am not making this up -- there are famous dead Gregories all over the place), who was hanged here for treason in 1821 after encouraging the Greeks to overthrow Ottoman rule. The Patriarchate centers on the basilica-style Church of St. George, which was built in 1720, but which contains many older artifacts, gilded icons and furniture.
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I walked back downhill and visited a really unusual building, the Church of St. Gregory -- just kidding, St. Stephen of the Bulgars. This entire church is constructed in cast iron, even the internal columns and galleries. (I have never been in a church before where, if you flick your finger against a column, it goes 'bong!') The history of its construction mirrors the whole dead Gregory thing. Gregory V was executed at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, 1821-32. Later, the Bulgarian community broke away from the authority of the Greek Patriarchate just up the hill. The Bulgarians were issued an ultimatum by the sultan: if you want a separate church, you must build it in one week. Pre-fabricated sections of cast iron were created in Vienna in 1871, shipped down the Danube to the Black Sea to the Bosphorous, and St. Gregory’s, sorry, St. Stephen’s was assembled in one week.
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It is really quite an astonishing building, an all-metal church. The echo is perfect for (dare I say it?) Gregorian chant and Orthodox hymnody. The church still serves the Bulgarian community today. The congregation keeps the tombs of the first Bulgarian patriarchs permanently decorated with flowers. The church stands in a park which runs down to the Golden Horn, dotted with trees and flowering shrubs. As I was walking back down to the waterfront, a shoe-shine guy brushed past me. He dropped a brush. I instinctively picked it up. Without me calling to him, he spun around, looked surprised and called me "a gentleman." In the immortal words of George W. Bush, "Fool me once ... uh ..."
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I have to report that Eyüp was a disappointment. Historically, it is the burial place of the standard bearer of the Prophet Mohammed, Eyüp Ensari. The wealthy elite established mosques and street fountains in the village but, above all, they chose Eyüp as a place of burial. Basically, Eyüp is one huge cemetery. Yet it is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from all over the world. I heard many languages that I did not recognize, and saw no casual tourists.
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Whereas most Americans consider cemeteries to be spooky places, the Ottoman graveyard is a garden where the living stroll among the dead without morbid inhibitions. The gravestones are often symbolic: from their decorations, one can determine the gender, occupation, rank and even the number of children of the deceased. For instance, the size of turban reflected a gentleman’s status; a differently shaped turban indicated a member of the Sufi order; women’s gravestones have a flower for each child.
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I took a ferry back down the Horn, sun-burnt, footsore and oxygen-hazed. The boat zigzagged slowly from one iskele (dock) on the south shore to the north shore of the Horn, back and forth like a giant grandmother doing somnambulant aquatic needlework, until I was finally deposited in Eminönü (umlauts on the, oh hell, who cares?) Trying to get from the ferry dock back to the Metro was actually frightening. A turgid torrent of humanity slowly struggled down the steps that led underground. One hesitant step at a times, I became gradually encased in a lava-like wall of humanity, oozing downward. Anxious shopkeepers tried to serve as foot-traffic cops, shouting and waving, but the living stream had a mind of its own. I was glad I was taller than most so that I could see potential openings, but they always seemed to close before I could get to them. I became worried that if someone were to lose it and start screaming, there would be a deadly stampede. I became worried that it might be me who would start screaming.
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Then I was hit on the head by the eagle. The shops that line the sides of this sluggish underground passage feature cheap clothes and noisy, plastic battery-powered toys. At ground level, toy police cars, tanks and trucks flash, whiz and whirl, while plastic airplanes and birds circle above, tethered to hooks in the ceiling. One of the circling eagles lost its mooring, fell and hit me on the head. I am proud to report that I did not scream, hence preventing the potential public panic. Being able to write this paragraph is proof of my (if I may so humbly say) heroic power of self control.
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Saturday, May 28, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Fun with Mavis and Herm: Part Two
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It was the Sunday morning one week after my return from Cappadocia. I was despairing that I may have boggled the dates when Mavis and Herm would return to Istanbul. I thought they were coming back on Saturday, so I had spent that whole time sleeping on the couch in avid anticipation of their return. Come Sunday morning, my only consolation was Total Rugby. Then the phone rang -- it had to be them! I had a difficult choice to make: rugby or ... I chose my friends (= free lunch).
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It was another beautiful spring day. I charged downhill. (OK, I lurched.) Upon entering the bus, even though empty seats were available, I chose to stand because there was an open window slat above me that drew in the fragrant April morning air. Before we had even reached the next stop, however, a stern hooded woman in a heavy, tan, ankle-length, buttoned-at-the-throat Islamist uniform slammed the window shut with an emphatic bang. She must have felt the dreaded coolness of the air and had courageously acted to prevent its threatening the endangered Turks behind me.
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I knew it was going to be a fun day when the driver honked at an errant motorist and the horn stuck, blaring at the impassive walls of the ill-fated Ciragan (Turkish ‘g’) Palace, a restored residence of the last Ottoman sultans, now a 5-star hotel. Both Driver and Change Maker leaped heroically through the front door, thrust open the hood and yanked at random cables until the horn stopped, but we passengers could not know this because of the cacophony of car horns protesting from behind our vehicle. During this distraction, I reopened the window, and enjoyed fresh air until I disembarked in Besiktas, whereupon I met the Hermodsons.
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Our first stop was the Dolmebahce (pronounced Dole-meh-BAH-jeh) Palace, meaning filled-in garden. The palace was constructed in 1856 in what had been a garden created over land recovered in the 16th century. The line of tourists was huge, and after a short wait (made shorter when an usher informed the crowded line that it would be at least an hour and a half before we even made it to the entrance booth), we decided that this was a site we would not be visiting today.
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We caught a bus to my neighborhood, Ortakoy, and visited the Saturday open market and took pictures of the neo-baroque mosque, then caught a taxi up to Kurucesme and visited the neighborhood where Nancy and I had lived for several months (described in loving terms in previous Istanbullets). We walked downhill to the church built over the dry well from whence the village derived its name, and M & H scrambled through the ancient tunnel to the underground source of the holy water. We then walked along the Bosporus to Arnavutkoy (“Armenian Village” -- I’m sorry that I originally called it a Greek settlement). This is where I go to get my hair cut by Adil, but my favorite restaurant, Abracadabra, was closed for renovations. We walked around until we found a place that was open but not crowded, and was sending off a lot of take-out food, which meant the locals liked the cooking there. (Busy restaurants in Istanbul maintain small fleets of motorcycle serfs who will speedily deliver their culinary products to your doorstep, wearing unfastened helmets while smoking en route.)
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After lunch, we continued our walk along the water and passed through Bebek (in Turkish, “Baby”). This place reminds me of Rodeo Drive (“Yeah, baby”) -- international high-end shops abut one another, while yacht-brought wealthies jog along the sidewalks with their designer dogs. Once we reached the northern end of the village, we caught a taxi to Rumeli HisarI -- Rumeli (meaning Roman, but really meaning Christian, the enemy the place was built to thwart) Fortress.
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This huge fortification was constructed in 1452, under the direction of Sultan Mehmet II Fatih (“The Conqueror”), one year prior to the conquest of Istanbul. Mehmet II’s aim was to block any support which might have come south from the Christian nations that nestled along the northwestern shores of the Black Sea to assist the Byzantines. It was erected on the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, facing another smaller Ottoman fortress that already existed on the Asian side. Amazingly, in an age lit only by fire and powered only by slaves and animals, Rumeli HisarI was completed after only 4 months: Mehmet II designed the first tower and created a competition between his Pashas (Generals) to complete a tower each and a connecting wall to the next tower.
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Now, Rumeli HisarI is a huge museum, displaying many of the ancient stone-throwing cannons that were used during the conquest. It has a large, open-air amphitheater that is used during the summer months for concerts, and the views from the battlements above the Bosporus are among the most spectacular in Istanbul. I always take my foreign guests there. However, I find each visit more harrowing, personally, as I am developing vertigo. To get to the battlements, one must climb ancient stone staircases, each step of which is irregular in composition and height between steps. There are no guardrails, and the steps get narrower the higher up you go. Also, the gusts of wind off the Bosporus get more erratic and forceful. I cling to the walls like a starfish on Haystack Rock, inching upward while my heart and breath rates enter the red zone. But once on top, it is exhilarating!
.
It was the Sunday morning one week after my return from Cappadocia. I was despairing that I may have boggled the dates when Mavis and Herm would return to Istanbul. I thought they were coming back on Saturday, so I had spent that whole time sleeping on the couch in avid anticipation of their return. Come Sunday morning, my only consolation was Total Rugby. Then the phone rang -- it had to be them! I had a difficult choice to make: rugby or ... I chose my friends (= free lunch).
.
It was another beautiful spring day. I charged downhill. (OK, I lurched.) Upon entering the bus, even though empty seats were available, I chose to stand because there was an open window slat above me that drew in the fragrant April morning air. Before we had even reached the next stop, however, a stern hooded woman in a heavy, tan, ankle-length, buttoned-at-the-throat Islamist uniform slammed the window shut with an emphatic bang. She must have felt the dreaded coolness of the air and had courageously acted to prevent its threatening the endangered Turks behind me.
.
I knew it was going to be a fun day when the driver honked at an errant motorist and the horn stuck, blaring at the impassive walls of the ill-fated Ciragan (Turkish ‘g’) Palace, a restored residence of the last Ottoman sultans, now a 5-star hotel. Both Driver and Change Maker leaped heroically through the front door, thrust open the hood and yanked at random cables until the horn stopped, but we passengers could not know this because of the cacophony of car horns protesting from behind our vehicle. During this distraction, I reopened the window, and enjoyed fresh air until I disembarked in Besiktas, whereupon I met the Hermodsons.
.
Our first stop was the Dolmebahce (pronounced Dole-meh-BAH-jeh) Palace, meaning filled-in garden. The palace was constructed in 1856 in what had been a garden created over land recovered in the 16th century. The line of tourists was huge, and after a short wait (made shorter when an usher informed the crowded line that it would be at least an hour and a half before we even made it to the entrance booth), we decided that this was a site we would not be visiting today.
.
We caught a bus to my neighborhood, Ortakoy, and visited the Saturday open market and took pictures of the neo-baroque mosque, then caught a taxi up to Kurucesme and visited the neighborhood where Nancy and I had lived for several months (described in loving terms in previous Istanbullets). We walked downhill to the church built over the dry well from whence the village derived its name, and M & H scrambled through the ancient tunnel to the underground source of the holy water. We then walked along the Bosporus to Arnavutkoy (“Armenian Village” -- I’m sorry that I originally called it a Greek settlement). This is where I go to get my hair cut by Adil, but my favorite restaurant, Abracadabra, was closed for renovations. We walked around until we found a place that was open but not crowded, and was sending off a lot of take-out food, which meant the locals liked the cooking there. (Busy restaurants in Istanbul maintain small fleets of motorcycle serfs who will speedily deliver their culinary products to your doorstep, wearing unfastened helmets while smoking en route.)
.
After lunch, we continued our walk along the water and passed through Bebek (in Turkish, “Baby”). This place reminds me of Rodeo Drive (“Yeah, baby”) -- international high-end shops abut one another, while yacht-brought wealthies jog along the sidewalks with their designer dogs. Once we reached the northern end of the village, we caught a taxi to Rumeli HisarI -- Rumeli (meaning Roman, but really meaning Christian, the enemy the place was built to thwart) Fortress.
.
This huge fortification was constructed in 1452, under the direction of Sultan Mehmet II Fatih (“The Conqueror”), one year prior to the conquest of Istanbul. Mehmet II’s aim was to block any support which might have come south from the Christian nations that nestled along the northwestern shores of the Black Sea to assist the Byzantines. It was erected on the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, facing another smaller Ottoman fortress that already existed on the Asian side. Amazingly, in an age lit only by fire and powered only by slaves and animals, Rumeli HisarI was completed after only 4 months: Mehmet II designed the first tower and created a competition between his Pashas (Generals) to complete a tower each and a connecting wall to the next tower.
.
Now, Rumeli HisarI is a huge museum, displaying many of the ancient stone-throwing cannons that were used during the conquest. It has a large, open-air amphitheater that is used during the summer months for concerts, and the views from the battlements above the Bosporus are among the most spectacular in Istanbul. I always take my foreign guests there. However, I find each visit more harrowing, personally, as I am developing vertigo. To get to the battlements, one must climb ancient stone staircases, each step of which is irregular in composition and height between steps. There are no guardrails, and the steps get narrower the higher up you go. Also, the gusts of wind off the Bosporus get more erratic and forceful. I cling to the walls like a starfish on Haystack Rock, inching upward while my heart and breath rates enter the red zone. But once on top, it is exhilarating!
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Thanks for the visit, Mavis and Herm! I hope to see you at my next international gig!
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Saturday, May 14, 2011
Upon Attending an Armenian Mass
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I just got back from the first Eucharist in which I have been a communicant in almost two years. I attended Saturday Mass at the Church of St. Gregory the Savior (I am not making this up), an Armenian Catholic church built in Ortakoy in 1839, making it older than the iconic Ortakoy mosque. I have walked past the walls surrounding this church for almost two years and never seen them open. I have pressed the buzzer outside the doors many times and never received a response. Today, I attended Mass thanks to the first friend I made in Istanbul, Gail Chandyok.
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Gail lived with her husband and son one floor above me in the apartment complex owned by MEF Schools in Umraniye, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, where I originally resided; this is where Nancy and I lived before she found the apartment in Kurucesme. During the weeks before Nancy arrived, Gail was my sanity anchor. She is a native Indian and teaches math (they call it "maths" here). She is always well dressed and organized -- my polar opposite. The Chandyoks are devout Catholics, and now live in the MEF apartments in which I reside in Ulus next to the school.
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Today was the second time I have participated in worship with them this year. On Good Friday past we, purely by chance, if one believes in coincidences, attended a Stations of the Cross service together in a Greek Orthodox church in Ortakoy. On Friday the 13th (gasp!), Gail and I happened to be sitting across from one another at lunch, and somehow the topic of prayer came up. (Since I am leaving Turkey in six weeks, and do not have a job awaiting me, I’ve been spending a lot of time praying.) Gail asked if I knew of the church mentioned above and I replied in the positive. She told me about Saturday’s Mass, so I came at 3:00 pm and there were she and Francis.
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The service took place in an intimate chapel aside from the main church. It lasted about an hour, and was attended by the Chandyoks, seven women and myself. The priest wore an elegant white silk cloak adorned with a beautiful embroidered cross on the back. Since he spent most of the service facing east, away from us, I saw more of his backside (like an audience sees a conductor) than otherwise. Francis passed me his missal so I could read the lesson of the day in English. During the Eucharist, we communicants got the wafer, but only Hayk took the water-mixed wine. One woman came late and left early (I thought only Lutherans did this).
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Afterward, in a shaded area between the church and the walls that protected it from the street, we had a tea party. There were eleven women and four of us of the other gender, including the priest. Slices of bread (of course), and unsweetened biscuits were served with constantly-refreshed small hourglass-shaped glasses of tea. Everyone but the Chandyoks, the priest and myself smoked cigarettes.
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I soon realized that I was the main topic of conversation because 1) I am different looking; 2) I am from America; 3) I am Christian -- not Catholic, but still present for Mass; 4) I am associated with Gail and Francis (both of whom speak Turkish), and; 5) I was able to communicate with the priest, Hayk Aram, a handsome 70-something fellow, who happens to speak German much better than I do.
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I learned that St. Gregory, according to legend, had been imprisoned in a well for 12 years, and had survived during that time solely on the bread and wine of the Eucharist. After excusing myself, I went back into the church to investigate the architecture, icons and the upper layers of the structure. The building is a small basilica with four faux marble pillars on each side of the nave, all with false capitals. The ceiling frescoes resemble recessed marble hollows such as in the Pantheon in Rome, and were painted by the artists who decorated the interior of the Dolmebahce Palace. In addition to a few representations of the Virgin, the wood-framed paintings that hung at intervals around the nave dealt with scenes from the life of St. Gregory. Interestingly, Jesus only appeared on the processional crucifixes.
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The church boasts two balconies, the only such feature of any church in Istanbul, I was told. Both balconies have raised platforms—the first possibly for additional seating, although there were no pews, as there were on the ground floor. The second balcony has two raised platforms, which I would like to believe were intended for a large choir. All the windows, from top to bottom, feature metal bars on the outside, and metal shutters that could be bolted from the inside. Hmm.
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Outside, near where the tea party took place, stands a silent wooden belfry with a large corroded bell. Behind the church is a barred stairway that leads to an underground recreation of St. Gregory’s well, now sadly considered unsafe for visitation.
.
I just got back from the first Eucharist in which I have been a communicant in almost two years. I attended Saturday Mass at the Church of St. Gregory the Savior (I am not making this up), an Armenian Catholic church built in Ortakoy in 1839, making it older than the iconic Ortakoy mosque. I have walked past the walls surrounding this church for almost two years and never seen them open. I have pressed the buzzer outside the doors many times and never received a response. Today, I attended Mass thanks to the first friend I made in Istanbul, Gail Chandyok.
.
Gail lived with her husband and son one floor above me in the apartment complex owned by MEF Schools in Umraniye, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, where I originally resided; this is where Nancy and I lived before she found the apartment in Kurucesme. During the weeks before Nancy arrived, Gail was my sanity anchor. She is a native Indian and teaches math (they call it "maths" here). She is always well dressed and organized -- my polar opposite. The Chandyoks are devout Catholics, and now live in the MEF apartments in which I reside in Ulus next to the school.
.
Today was the second time I have participated in worship with them this year. On Good Friday past we, purely by chance, if one believes in coincidences, attended a Stations of the Cross service together in a Greek Orthodox church in Ortakoy. On Friday the 13th (gasp!), Gail and I happened to be sitting across from one another at lunch, and somehow the topic of prayer came up. (Since I am leaving Turkey in six weeks, and do not have a job awaiting me, I’ve been spending a lot of time praying.) Gail asked if I knew of the church mentioned above and I replied in the positive. She told me about Saturday’s Mass, so I came at 3:00 pm and there were she and Francis.
.
The service took place in an intimate chapel aside from the main church. It lasted about an hour, and was attended by the Chandyoks, seven women and myself. The priest wore an elegant white silk cloak adorned with a beautiful embroidered cross on the back. Since he spent most of the service facing east, away from us, I saw more of his backside (like an audience sees a conductor) than otherwise. Francis passed me his missal so I could read the lesson of the day in English. During the Eucharist, we communicants got the wafer, but only Hayk took the water-mixed wine. One woman came late and left early (I thought only Lutherans did this).
.
Afterward, in a shaded area between the church and the walls that protected it from the street, we had a tea party. There were eleven women and four of us of the other gender, including the priest. Slices of bread (of course), and unsweetened biscuits were served with constantly-refreshed small hourglass-shaped glasses of tea. Everyone but the Chandyoks, the priest and myself smoked cigarettes.
.
I soon realized that I was the main topic of conversation because 1) I am different looking; 2) I am from America; 3) I am Christian -- not Catholic, but still present for Mass; 4) I am associated with Gail and Francis (both of whom speak Turkish), and; 5) I was able to communicate with the priest, Hayk Aram, a handsome 70-something fellow, who happens to speak German much better than I do.
.
I learned that St. Gregory, according to legend, had been imprisoned in a well for 12 years, and had survived during that time solely on the bread and wine of the Eucharist. After excusing myself, I went back into the church to investigate the architecture, icons and the upper layers of the structure. The building is a small basilica with four faux marble pillars on each side of the nave, all with false capitals. The ceiling frescoes resemble recessed marble hollows such as in the Pantheon in Rome, and were painted by the artists who decorated the interior of the Dolmebahce Palace. In addition to a few representations of the Virgin, the wood-framed paintings that hung at intervals around the nave dealt with scenes from the life of St. Gregory. Interestingly, Jesus only appeared on the processional crucifixes.
.
The church boasts two balconies, the only such feature of any church in Istanbul, I was told. Both balconies have raised platforms—the first possibly for additional seating, although there were no pews, as there were on the ground floor. The second balcony has two raised platforms, which I would like to believe were intended for a large choir. All the windows, from top to bottom, feature metal bars on the outside, and metal shutters that could be bolted from the inside. Hmm.
.
Outside, near where the tea party took place, stands a silent wooden belfry with a large corroded bell. Behind the church is a barred stairway that leads to an underground recreation of St. Gregory’s well, now sadly considered unsafe for visitation.
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Monday, May 9, 2011
Upon Visiting Cappadocia, Day Two
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On Friday morning, while taking breakfast outside (to the amazed horror of Omar because the temperature was OMG! cool), I was delighted to observe a huge, yellow-and-orange striped hot-air balloon pass overhead, huffing and wheezing. The basket must have held over 30 people. The winds in this area change direction as the air warms, so the balloons follow a circular path over this incredible landscape and return close enough to home for the tourists to land and be driven back to their hotels, while the balloons are deflated and returned by pickup truck to their starting sites.
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When the tour van arrived, it contained two couples from Brazil, another mother/daughter combination (Germans -- mom from Freiburg, daughter from Berlin, a history major), a guy from Nigeria working for a petroleum company in Turkey, two male Canadian companions from Quebec, who conversed in French, a hooded woman from Uzbekistan (who spoke perfect American English and lives with her mother in Doha, home of Aljazeera TV), me and Ali, the guide.
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(SIDE-NOTE: There is a peculiar territoriality that occurs when a group of people first enters an enclosed space, such as a classroom or a bus. Once a person initially chooses a place to sit, that becomes the place where they tend to sit whenever they return. During my school days, and extending into my college years, I liked to disrupt this silliness by taking one of the popular people’s seats whenever I arrived before them. The ensuing confusion was very amusing to observe. But, on a tour bus, where people tend to leave personal belongings on or below their seats, this was not possible. I sat in a single seat behind the Uzbeki woman.)
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After driving past many of the geological marvels I had seen the day before, we disembarked and began a 3km hike up to a plateau above the Rose Valley. (On tours, I like to stay as close to the guide as possible so I don’t miss any information, and so s/he might like me enough at the end to not expect a tip.) I was dismayed at how quickly I was gasping for air. My muscles were fine, but my respiration and heart-rate were desperate. The trail left no opportunities to stop and rest as we trudged upward through towering V-shaped walls of tuff. I was gasping for oxygen, but was not about to suffer the indignity of halting the progress of the serpentine line of tourists following me by collapsing on the trail. (This possibility, however, did enter my mind.) Once we finally reached an open space, I realized that there was no one behind me—I could have stopped at any time. I had been keeping pace with the guides who do this for a living, and the Germans who, like the Austrians and Swiss, think hiking up mountains is fun. Now that I had some time for wheezing cogitation, as the rest of the group finally managed to catch up to us, I realized that I had been scrambling uphill at over 10,000 feet above sea level. Gasping up here is OK.
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I was not impressed by the Rose Valley, so-called because of the layers of reddish pigmentation in the sedimentary walls of the cliffs. It was small beer compared to the Badlands of South Dakota. We walked on past, into and through many dwellings and chapels that had been dug out of the tuff, revealed now because of centuries of erosion, or still intact with weathered frescoes inside. Back in the van, we drove to a site that allowed tourists to enter one of the several underground cities created by the early Christians to protect themselves from the Romans and, later, the Turks. These people literally crawled into the embrace of the rock, emulating non-aggressive ants—they were communal, everyone had a specific job to do, and they were hard to wipe out.
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They protected the entrances to these underground cities in a very ingenious way. A large, circular stone was rolled into the entryway--a vertical aperture tall enough for a person of the period to enter easily. This stone was then rolled to the side of the entrance into a space carved out of the tuff, allowing easy access for the inhabitants. When danger approached, the stone was rolled into place and buttressed against ramming.
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Along the way, I noticed that most of the mosques did not have domes (autistics like things to be the same). I mentioned this to the Uzbek woman who sat in front of me, and she was similarly puzzled. After a while, she posited that they may be Sufi mosques, Sufis being the Muslim sect from which the famous “whirling dervishes” derive. I asked her how the Sufis had managed to escape the internecine struggles that are still plaguing the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. She replied that the Sufis believe that they have a unique connection with Allah (the dance of the dervishes is an expression of this spiritual connection) and if others choose another path to Him, that is fine with the Sufis. They only fight in self-defense.
.
Once we entered the human ant hill, I knew I could not descend deeper than far enough to see what it offered at the upper levels -- defensive ante-chambers, living and storage spaces, temporary cemeteries, wineries and chapels. Every room was teeming with tourants, mostly Japanese. By the 2nd level down, my claustrophobia was screaming and I returned to the daylight. My fellow companions later reported that they wished they had followed my example, because after the 2nd level the dark corridors became smaller and smaller, warmer and warmer, and began to reek of nervous perspiration, and there was nothing new to see but smaller examples of what had been carved out nearer the surface.
.
The next stop was a factory featuring semi-precious stones, but specializing in onyx. We were ushered into a workshop where an elderly smith sat before a stone lathe. He locked a rectangular block of onyx into the device, and then began noisily scaling away layers of stone chips. Eventually, he created a beautiful stone egg the color of thick honey, polished to perfection, standing on a coarse pedestal, this being the only remnant of the original block of onyx. I was very impressed because it was all done manually -- no buttons were pushed other than On and Off.
.
After this demonstration, we were herded into a large jewelry store, with precious stones displayed in every fashion -- necklaces, earrings, etc. Our group was led to another demonstration intended to whet our appetites so that we would buy something. My rug merchant antipathy was on high alert. However, after having given her spiel, the hostess asked if anyone could answer the question, “What does ‘Cappadocia’ mean?” Since I had been making taking mental notes for this Istanbullet all day, I immediately blurted out the answer that Ali had said that very morning, “Place of beautiful horses.” I now own the onyx egg described above.
.
Our last stop was Pigeon Valley. Because Cappadocia is basically a bunch of volcanic rocks, the inhabitants had to create food. To do so, they needed fertilizer. Hence the pigeons. There are thousands of pigeon coops carved into the hillsides. Anyone who has ever visited a major metropolitan area knows that pigeons = poop. In Cappadocia, pigeon poop was encouraged. Now, the wines from Cappadocia are considered Turkey’s finest, all due to guano.
.
Back at the hotel, while sitting reading outside in the cool (meaning I was alone) fading evening light, two workmen arrived. Their job was to attach rope lights to the metal latticework that held grape vines above where I was sitting. I can imagine that the eventual effect will be quite lovely. During this procedure, Omar brought them tea, then a plate of biscuits, and then a plate of orange slices -- Turkish hospitality. Turks are lovely people I will miss very much.
.
On Friday morning, while taking breakfast outside (to the amazed horror of Omar because the temperature was OMG! cool), I was delighted to observe a huge, yellow-and-orange striped hot-air balloon pass overhead, huffing and wheezing. The basket must have held over 30 people. The winds in this area change direction as the air warms, so the balloons follow a circular path over this incredible landscape and return close enough to home for the tourists to land and be driven back to their hotels, while the balloons are deflated and returned by pickup truck to their starting sites.
.
When the tour van arrived, it contained two couples from Brazil, another mother/daughter combination (Germans -- mom from Freiburg, daughter from Berlin, a history major), a guy from Nigeria working for a petroleum company in Turkey, two male Canadian companions from Quebec, who conversed in French, a hooded woman from Uzbekistan (who spoke perfect American English and lives with her mother in Doha, home of Aljazeera TV), me and Ali, the guide.
.
(SIDE-NOTE: There is a peculiar territoriality that occurs when a group of people first enters an enclosed space, such as a classroom or a bus. Once a person initially chooses a place to sit, that becomes the place where they tend to sit whenever they return. During my school days, and extending into my college years, I liked to disrupt this silliness by taking one of the popular people’s seats whenever I arrived before them. The ensuing confusion was very amusing to observe. But, on a tour bus, where people tend to leave personal belongings on or below their seats, this was not possible. I sat in a single seat behind the Uzbeki woman.)
.
After driving past many of the geological marvels I had seen the day before, we disembarked and began a 3km hike up to a plateau above the Rose Valley. (On tours, I like to stay as close to the guide as possible so I don’t miss any information, and so s/he might like me enough at the end to not expect a tip.) I was dismayed at how quickly I was gasping for air. My muscles were fine, but my respiration and heart-rate were desperate. The trail left no opportunities to stop and rest as we trudged upward through towering V-shaped walls of tuff. I was gasping for oxygen, but was not about to suffer the indignity of halting the progress of the serpentine line of tourists following me by collapsing on the trail. (This possibility, however, did enter my mind.) Once we finally reached an open space, I realized that there was no one behind me—I could have stopped at any time. I had been keeping pace with the guides who do this for a living, and the Germans who, like the Austrians and Swiss, think hiking up mountains is fun. Now that I had some time for wheezing cogitation, as the rest of the group finally managed to catch up to us, I realized that I had been scrambling uphill at over 10,000 feet above sea level. Gasping up here is OK.
.
I was not impressed by the Rose Valley, so-called because of the layers of reddish pigmentation in the sedimentary walls of the cliffs. It was small beer compared to the Badlands of South Dakota. We walked on past, into and through many dwellings and chapels that had been dug out of the tuff, revealed now because of centuries of erosion, or still intact with weathered frescoes inside. Back in the van, we drove to a site that allowed tourists to enter one of the several underground cities created by the early Christians to protect themselves from the Romans and, later, the Turks. These people literally crawled into the embrace of the rock, emulating non-aggressive ants—they were communal, everyone had a specific job to do, and they were hard to wipe out.
.
They protected the entrances to these underground cities in a very ingenious way. A large, circular stone was rolled into the entryway--a vertical aperture tall enough for a person of the period to enter easily. This stone was then rolled to the side of the entrance into a space carved out of the tuff, allowing easy access for the inhabitants. When danger approached, the stone was rolled into place and buttressed against ramming.
.
Along the way, I noticed that most of the mosques did not have domes (autistics like things to be the same). I mentioned this to the Uzbek woman who sat in front of me, and she was similarly puzzled. After a while, she posited that they may be Sufi mosques, Sufis being the Muslim sect from which the famous “whirling dervishes” derive. I asked her how the Sufis had managed to escape the internecine struggles that are still plaguing the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. She replied that the Sufis believe that they have a unique connection with Allah (the dance of the dervishes is an expression of this spiritual connection) and if others choose another path to Him, that is fine with the Sufis. They only fight in self-defense.
.
Once we entered the human ant hill, I knew I could not descend deeper than far enough to see what it offered at the upper levels -- defensive ante-chambers, living and storage spaces, temporary cemeteries, wineries and chapels. Every room was teeming with tourants, mostly Japanese. By the 2nd level down, my claustrophobia was screaming and I returned to the daylight. My fellow companions later reported that they wished they had followed my example, because after the 2nd level the dark corridors became smaller and smaller, warmer and warmer, and began to reek of nervous perspiration, and there was nothing new to see but smaller examples of what had been carved out nearer the surface.
.
The next stop was a factory featuring semi-precious stones, but specializing in onyx. We were ushered into a workshop where an elderly smith sat before a stone lathe. He locked a rectangular block of onyx into the device, and then began noisily scaling away layers of stone chips. Eventually, he created a beautiful stone egg the color of thick honey, polished to perfection, standing on a coarse pedestal, this being the only remnant of the original block of onyx. I was very impressed because it was all done manually -- no buttons were pushed other than On and Off.
.
After this demonstration, we were herded into a large jewelry store, with precious stones displayed in every fashion -- necklaces, earrings, etc. Our group was led to another demonstration intended to whet our appetites so that we would buy something. My rug merchant antipathy was on high alert. However, after having given her spiel, the hostess asked if anyone could answer the question, “What does ‘Cappadocia’ mean?” Since I had been making taking mental notes for this Istanbullet all day, I immediately blurted out the answer that Ali had said that very morning, “Place of beautiful horses.” I now own the onyx egg described above.
.
Our last stop was Pigeon Valley. Because Cappadocia is basically a bunch of volcanic rocks, the inhabitants had to create food. To do so, they needed fertilizer. Hence the pigeons. There are thousands of pigeon coops carved into the hillsides. Anyone who has ever visited a major metropolitan area knows that pigeons = poop. In Cappadocia, pigeon poop was encouraged. Now, the wines from Cappadocia are considered Turkey’s finest, all due to guano.
.
Back at the hotel, while sitting reading outside in the cool (meaning I was alone) fading evening light, two workmen arrived. Their job was to attach rope lights to the metal latticework that held grape vines above where I was sitting. I can imagine that the eventual effect will be quite lovely. During this procedure, Omar brought them tea, then a plate of biscuits, and then a plate of orange slices -- Turkish hospitality. Turks are lovely people I will miss very much.
.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Upon Visiting Cappadocia, Day One
.
It was another solitary Sunday morning. I was listening to, but not watching, the live television broadcast of the opening race of the Formula One automobile competition season in Abu Dhabi, waiting for Total Rugby to come on, while playing Buddhist Solitaire (to win, you have to lose)*, when I remembered that the Australian girl I had met on the first day of my tour in Cappadocia was a fan of Formula One racing and would be at the race I was currently not watching. Also, the next leg of the racing circuit would take place in Istanbul. Therefore, I took these presentiments as signs that providence was telling me it was now time to set down my reminiscences of that trip.
.
Cappadocia is spelled and pronounced Kapadokya by the Turks. It is a region of fantastic geological and historical wonders in the very center of Turkey, truly unique in the world. (Google “Cappadocia” for images and history -- you will be astounded.) For my Washingtonian readers old enough to remember, the ash-fall from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 was mere mist compared to the deluge of ash that covered this region.
.
I had arranged my time in Cappadocia to coincide with when Mavis and Herm (see previous Istanbullet) were scheduled to be there, in the unrealized hope that we might possibly meet. I arrived at the airport in Kayseri at around 6:00 am on an April Thursday. Kayseri (pronounced KIE-sa-ree) was known as Caesarea during the Roman times. By the fourth century AD, it had become a focal point of Christian life and faith. St. Basil the Great, who defended church doctrine against heretical movements, was once its leading cleric.
.
Due to the early hour, the only choice for getting to my hotel in Urgup (pronounced with umlauts) was an expensive taxi ride. The Urgup Inn Cave Hotel is a small, family run affair, the kind that Rick Steves advocates. (Sorry, Steve, but I discovered it on my own.) After several inquiries by the taxi driver, it was found up a steep, cobbled, one-lane side street. I was greeted by the owner, Omar (who resembled the villain in Nicholas Cage’s 2010 vehicle, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”). Omar was so mortified that my travel agent had not contacted him so that I could have taken a much cheaper shuttle van from the airport to the hotel, he gave me the best room in the ancient establishment.
.
The premises had originally been a monastery carved out of the side of a hill, long since eroded away, of which my room had been the chapel. It had a high, stone, barrel-vaulted/pointed-arched ceiling, and a huge double bed, the head of which abutted the stonework of a small, recessed altar space. The entrance to the bathroom consisted of a small stone archway that required me to duck upon entry. I cannot remember the number of times that I bashed my head against these stones upon exiting, but they were many.
.
After a typical Turkish breakfast (cucumber and tomato slices, white cheese, a freshly boiled egg, warm white bread with butter and a selection of toppings, washed down by way of a pot of tea), I was picked up by the tour van for my first day of being a tourist in a long while. Aboard were six Australians,** (two Muslim couples from Melbourne, and a mother/daughter pair from Sydney -- the daughter being the Formula One fan mentioned above), a Turkish couple, a taciturn American woman, a Canadian from Ontario, myself, and the guide, Ali (female).
.
Our morning adventure was the Open-Air Museum outside Goreme (pronounced GOO-re-meh). Summarized quote: “The Goreme Valley holds the largest concentration of rock-cut chapels in Cappadocia. Dating largely from the 9th century onwards, the valley’s 30-some chapels were (carved) out of the soft volcanic tuff.” (Insert: “Tuff” is solidified volcanic ash -- you can scrape it away with a finger.) “Many of the churches feature superb Byzantine frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and particularly the life of Christ and the deeds of the saints.” Most of these frescos were literally defaced after the Muslim conquest.
.
After lunch, we were taken to a rug factory, where we were subjected to a promotional tour. We watched tiny hooded women sitting cross-legged on a cold marble floor tying countless knots into rugs that could take many months to finish, while an overweight, mustachioed and wigged swell in a silk suit, wearing pointed leather shoes, extrapolated on the superiority of Turkish rugs, “which feature two knots at every junction, instead of the single knots of rugs made in other nearby countries.” (I detest these rug hawkers. In Istanbul, they prowl the tourist areas and prey upon old people who are too polite to tell these well-dressed pests to go away. Instead, the victims are followed and badgered until they are intimidated into wasting their valuable touring time among the ancient sites, and are cajoled into a shop where they are given sweet tea, the knot story, etc. Once I figured out this game, I created a solution: when approached and asked, “Where do you come from?”, I reply, “So, you speak English?” “Yes, sir.” “Then, fuck off!” It works every time.)
.
There was one part of this exhibition that I found elucidating, however, and that was when we were shown how silk is mechanically removed from the cocoons—it reminded me of the way fishing line is retrieved on a spinning reel. The final stop of the tour was atop a ridge with an awesome (I never use this word casually) view of the region. I slept soundly that night because this was a lightly populated and historically Christian area. There were no police or ambulance sirens, no honking car horns, nor muezzin (the calls to prayer by the Imams, broadcast loudly from speakers atop the minarets that adorn every mosque).
.
* It’s a very simple, mindless game I invented as a kid. You are playing YOU against HIM. YOU always play first (I was a kid, OK?). Thoroughly shuffle the cards six times, using different shuffle patterns, but always use the same order of shuffle patterns. (Do you see why I’ve always thought I am mildly autistic?) Lay down 4 cards in an overlapping line. If the 4th card matches the number, face or suit of the 1st card, remove the 2 cards in between. If you get 4 cards of the same suit in a row, remove all 4, unless, by removing cards in twos you can remove more (it will make sense when you try it). Continue laying down/removing cards until they are all gone. If you have 16 or fewer cards left, you “win” and get to repeat the process until you end up with a line of over 16 cards. YOU then add up the total number of points YOU amassed. Now, HE repeats the process. Since the ultimate winner is the one with the fewest points at the end, the ideal hand is 18. The Buddhist aspect which I, of course, did not understand at the time, is that every time YOU “win”, YOU are adding more points to your total. Each win brings YOU ultimately closer to losing.
.
** Australians, Germans and New Zealanders are among the most common tourists in Turkey, a by-product of World War I. Turkey sided with Germany because of her ancient antipathetic relationship with Imperial Russia; the Australians and New Zealanders fought against the Turks because they were members of the British Commonwealth. Thousands died. Churchill lost his position as Lord of the Admiralty due to the naval losses in the Dardanelles. Eventually, the Allies withdrew in one of history’s most remarkable retreats: thousands of soldiers were evacuated without a single casualty due to hostile action. History calls the Gallipoli campaign a failure, yet out of it rose three modern, independent nations: Australia, New Zealand and Turkey.
.
It was another solitary Sunday morning. I was listening to, but not watching, the live television broadcast of the opening race of the Formula One automobile competition season in Abu Dhabi, waiting for Total Rugby to come on, while playing Buddhist Solitaire (to win, you have to lose)*, when I remembered that the Australian girl I had met on the first day of my tour in Cappadocia was a fan of Formula One racing and would be at the race I was currently not watching. Also, the next leg of the racing circuit would take place in Istanbul. Therefore, I took these presentiments as signs that providence was telling me it was now time to set down my reminiscences of that trip.
.
Cappadocia is spelled and pronounced Kapadokya by the Turks. It is a region of fantastic geological and historical wonders in the very center of Turkey, truly unique in the world. (Google “Cappadocia” for images and history -- you will be astounded.) For my Washingtonian readers old enough to remember, the ash-fall from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 was mere mist compared to the deluge of ash that covered this region.
.
I had arranged my time in Cappadocia to coincide with when Mavis and Herm (see previous Istanbullet) were scheduled to be there, in the unrealized hope that we might possibly meet. I arrived at the airport in Kayseri at around 6:00 am on an April Thursday. Kayseri (pronounced KIE-sa-ree) was known as Caesarea during the Roman times. By the fourth century AD, it had become a focal point of Christian life and faith. St. Basil the Great, who defended church doctrine against heretical movements, was once its leading cleric.
.
Due to the early hour, the only choice for getting to my hotel in Urgup (pronounced with umlauts) was an expensive taxi ride. The Urgup Inn Cave Hotel is a small, family run affair, the kind that Rick Steves advocates. (Sorry, Steve, but I discovered it on my own.) After several inquiries by the taxi driver, it was found up a steep, cobbled, one-lane side street. I was greeted by the owner, Omar (who resembled the villain in Nicholas Cage’s 2010 vehicle, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”). Omar was so mortified that my travel agent had not contacted him so that I could have taken a much cheaper shuttle van from the airport to the hotel, he gave me the best room in the ancient establishment.
.
The premises had originally been a monastery carved out of the side of a hill, long since eroded away, of which my room had been the chapel. It had a high, stone, barrel-vaulted/pointed-arched ceiling, and a huge double bed, the head of which abutted the stonework of a small, recessed altar space. The entrance to the bathroom consisted of a small stone archway that required me to duck upon entry. I cannot remember the number of times that I bashed my head against these stones upon exiting, but they were many.
.
After a typical Turkish breakfast (cucumber and tomato slices, white cheese, a freshly boiled egg, warm white bread with butter and a selection of toppings, washed down by way of a pot of tea), I was picked up by the tour van for my first day of being a tourist in a long while. Aboard were six Australians,** (two Muslim couples from Melbourne, and a mother/daughter pair from Sydney -- the daughter being the Formula One fan mentioned above), a Turkish couple, a taciturn American woman, a Canadian from Ontario, myself, and the guide, Ali (female).
.
Our morning adventure was the Open-Air Museum outside Goreme (pronounced GOO-re-meh). Summarized quote: “The Goreme Valley holds the largest concentration of rock-cut chapels in Cappadocia. Dating largely from the 9th century onwards, the valley’s 30-some chapels were (carved) out of the soft volcanic tuff.” (Insert: “Tuff” is solidified volcanic ash -- you can scrape it away with a finger.) “Many of the churches feature superb Byzantine frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and particularly the life of Christ and the deeds of the saints.” Most of these frescos were literally defaced after the Muslim conquest.
.
After lunch, we were taken to a rug factory, where we were subjected to a promotional tour. We watched tiny hooded women sitting cross-legged on a cold marble floor tying countless knots into rugs that could take many months to finish, while an overweight, mustachioed and wigged swell in a silk suit, wearing pointed leather shoes, extrapolated on the superiority of Turkish rugs, “which feature two knots at every junction, instead of the single knots of rugs made in other nearby countries.” (I detest these rug hawkers. In Istanbul, they prowl the tourist areas and prey upon old people who are too polite to tell these well-dressed pests to go away. Instead, the victims are followed and badgered until they are intimidated into wasting their valuable touring time among the ancient sites, and are cajoled into a shop where they are given sweet tea, the knot story, etc. Once I figured out this game, I created a solution: when approached and asked, “Where do you come from?”, I reply, “So, you speak English?” “Yes, sir.” “Then, fuck off!” It works every time.)
.
There was one part of this exhibition that I found elucidating, however, and that was when we were shown how silk is mechanically removed from the cocoons—it reminded me of the way fishing line is retrieved on a spinning reel. The final stop of the tour was atop a ridge with an awesome (I never use this word casually) view of the region. I slept soundly that night because this was a lightly populated and historically Christian area. There were no police or ambulance sirens, no honking car horns, nor muezzin (the calls to prayer by the Imams, broadcast loudly from speakers atop the minarets that adorn every mosque).
.
* It’s a very simple, mindless game I invented as a kid. You are playing YOU against HIM. YOU always play first (I was a kid, OK?). Thoroughly shuffle the cards six times, using different shuffle patterns, but always use the same order of shuffle patterns. (Do you see why I’ve always thought I am mildly autistic?) Lay down 4 cards in an overlapping line. If the 4th card matches the number, face or suit of the 1st card, remove the 2 cards in between. If you get 4 cards of the same suit in a row, remove all 4, unless, by removing cards in twos you can remove more (it will make sense when you try it). Continue laying down/removing cards until they are all gone. If you have 16 or fewer cards left, you “win” and get to repeat the process until you end up with a line of over 16 cards. YOU then add up the total number of points YOU amassed. Now, HE repeats the process. Since the ultimate winner is the one with the fewest points at the end, the ideal hand is 18. The Buddhist aspect which I, of course, did not understand at the time, is that every time YOU “win”, YOU are adding more points to your total. Each win brings YOU ultimately closer to losing.
.
** Australians, Germans and New Zealanders are among the most common tourists in Turkey, a by-product of World War I. Turkey sided with Germany because of her ancient antipathetic relationship with Imperial Russia; the Australians and New Zealanders fought against the Turks because they were members of the British Commonwealth. Thousands died. Churchill lost his position as Lord of the Admiralty due to the naval losses in the Dardanelles. Eventually, the Allies withdrew in one of history’s most remarkable retreats: thousands of soldiers were evacuated without a single casualty due to hostile action. History calls the Gallipoli campaign a failure, yet out of it rose three modern, independent nations: Australia, New Zealand and Turkey.
.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Fun with Mavis and Herm: Part One
.
Over twenty-odd years ago, Nancy, Matthew and I moved from Los Angeles to northwestern Wisconsin, to a city named Eau Claire. Eau Claire is, duh, French, and means “clear water,” a misnomer since the river is the color of strong tea. This is due to the tons of bark that were shed from the millions of acres of pine trees that were harvested and rafted down the river past the town during the 19th century. The disintegrating bark continues to release tannin, hence the color of the water. Julia was born in Eau Claire.
.
The reason we were in Eau Claire is because I landed my first university teaching position there. Soon, I also took on the job as choir director/organist at Trinity Lutheran Church. That’s where I met the Hermodsons, Mavis, alto, and Warren (Herm), tenor. Warren was a teacher of reading at one of the local junior high schools, and Mavis was establishing a driving school. Most of Mavis’ students were Hmong immigrants. If you have seen the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino, you have been introduced to these Laotian immigrants, mountain people who backed the US effort in Vietnam, and left en masse to save their ass to the northern Midwest when the communists took over.
.
Warren and Mavis are tourists now in Turkey, and we spent most of an early April day together. I met them at their hotel on a brisk Saturday morning and we set off to see some interesting sites that were not on their Istanbul itinerary. We began with a short walk down Barbaros Bulvari (Barbarous Boulevard) then caught a bus to Kabatas (pronounced “Cobatosh,” meaning “rough rocks”) where we took the Metro (urban rail) to Sultanahmet (named after Sultan Ahmet I, who built the Blue Mosque) and their first visitation site, the Basilica Cistern. This underground marvel dates from 532 AD, and is an amazing example of Byzantine engineering. Its existence was unknown for centuries. It wasn’t until over 100 years after the Ottoman conquest (when Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453) that the cistern was rediscovered -- people were found to be collecting water and fish by lowering buckets through holes in their basements. The cistern’s vaulted brick roof is supported by 336 columns, each over 26 feet tall, each capped with an ornately carved capital, each looted from Roman ruins. The two most unique columns rest on huge Medusa head bases. One of the heads is upside down. Tourists gape and ponder why. Why not? The columns were going to be underwater and underground for centuries. Which of the Byzantine engineers could have ever imagined they would be seen by anyone, much less millions of tourists?
.
Next, we walked through the huge courtyard of Yeni Camii (pronounced “Yenny Jommy,” meaning “New Mosque”), which dates from the 17th century, making it, by Istanbul standards, new. Then we passed through the Spice Bazaar, an L-shaped collection of crowded, aromatic stalls under a high ceiling, built as an extension of the New Mosque complex. It was originally called the Egyptian Bazaar because it was built using money from spices imported from Egypt.
.
Then, we used a Metro/taxi combination to visit the Chora Museum. This remarkable building takes its name from the Greek word “chora,” meaning an area outside of a city or in the countryside. A former monastery, later called the Church of St. Savior, later again called Kariye Camii, Chora originally lay outside the city walls built by Constantine, but was later contained within the massive Theodosian walls built in 423 AD, walls which protected Constantinople from invasion for over 1000 years. The church was destroyed by earthquakes and fires several times, but was always rebuilt. The present church-turned-mosque-turned-museum dates from the 11th century. Its world-famous mosaics date from 1315-21, and depict the genealogy, infancy, and ministry of Jesus. My favorites are those depicting the life of the Virgin, stories taken from the Gospel of St. James written in the 2nd century, subject matter that was extremely popular in the Middle Ages, but later judged as inauthentic (apocryphal).
.
We returned to Sultanahmet for an outdoor lunch, where we were protected from the predicted rain (which arrived almost exactly on time) by a sturdy plastic canopy. Full, footsore, but not fatigued, we walked downhill to the Archeological Museum. This enormous musem includes artifacts spanning over 5,000 years. The most amazing thing to me is that this collection of antiquities was only begun in the mid-19th century! It now contains one of the world’s richest gatherings of classical and pre-classical artifacts. I have visited it three times, and have still not seen all the exhibits. In fact, when I visited it this latest time with Mavis and Warren, a whole new wing was open in an area that had been closed before.
.
We taxied back to Besiktas (pronounced “Beshiktosh,” meaning “five rocks”), where I got out, sent the Hermodsons on the way back to their hotel, and caught a bus home, in the happy knowledge that we would be back together in two weeks for more Adventures.
.
Over twenty-odd years ago, Nancy, Matthew and I moved from Los Angeles to northwestern Wisconsin, to a city named Eau Claire. Eau Claire is, duh, French, and means “clear water,” a misnomer since the river is the color of strong tea. This is due to the tons of bark that were shed from the millions of acres of pine trees that were harvested and rafted down the river past the town during the 19th century. The disintegrating bark continues to release tannin, hence the color of the water. Julia was born in Eau Claire.
.
The reason we were in Eau Claire is because I landed my first university teaching position there. Soon, I also took on the job as choir director/organist at Trinity Lutheran Church. That’s where I met the Hermodsons, Mavis, alto, and Warren (Herm), tenor. Warren was a teacher of reading at one of the local junior high schools, and Mavis was establishing a driving school. Most of Mavis’ students were Hmong immigrants. If you have seen the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino, you have been introduced to these Laotian immigrants, mountain people who backed the US effort in Vietnam, and left en masse to save their ass to the northern Midwest when the communists took over.
.
Warren and Mavis are tourists now in Turkey, and we spent most of an early April day together. I met them at their hotel on a brisk Saturday morning and we set off to see some interesting sites that were not on their Istanbul itinerary. We began with a short walk down Barbaros Bulvari (Barbarous Boulevard) then caught a bus to Kabatas (pronounced “Cobatosh,” meaning “rough rocks”) where we took the Metro (urban rail) to Sultanahmet (named after Sultan Ahmet I, who built the Blue Mosque) and their first visitation site, the Basilica Cistern. This underground marvel dates from 532 AD, and is an amazing example of Byzantine engineering. Its existence was unknown for centuries. It wasn’t until over 100 years after the Ottoman conquest (when Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453) that the cistern was rediscovered -- people were found to be collecting water and fish by lowering buckets through holes in their basements. The cistern’s vaulted brick roof is supported by 336 columns, each over 26 feet tall, each capped with an ornately carved capital, each looted from Roman ruins. The two most unique columns rest on huge Medusa head bases. One of the heads is upside down. Tourists gape and ponder why. Why not? The columns were going to be underwater and underground for centuries. Which of the Byzantine engineers could have ever imagined they would be seen by anyone, much less millions of tourists?
.
Next, we walked through the huge courtyard of Yeni Camii (pronounced “Yenny Jommy,” meaning “New Mosque”), which dates from the 17th century, making it, by Istanbul standards, new. Then we passed through the Spice Bazaar, an L-shaped collection of crowded, aromatic stalls under a high ceiling, built as an extension of the New Mosque complex. It was originally called the Egyptian Bazaar because it was built using money from spices imported from Egypt.
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Then, we used a Metro/taxi combination to visit the Chora Museum. This remarkable building takes its name from the Greek word “chora,” meaning an area outside of a city or in the countryside. A former monastery, later called the Church of St. Savior, later again called Kariye Camii, Chora originally lay outside the city walls built by Constantine, but was later contained within the massive Theodosian walls built in 423 AD, walls which protected Constantinople from invasion for over 1000 years. The church was destroyed by earthquakes and fires several times, but was always rebuilt. The present church-turned-mosque-turned-
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We returned to Sultanahmet for an outdoor lunch, where we were protected from the predicted rain (which arrived almost exactly on time) by a sturdy plastic canopy. Full, footsore, but not fatigued, we walked downhill to the Archeological Museum. This enormous musem includes artifacts spanning over 5,000 years. The most amazing thing to me is that this collection of antiquities was only begun in the mid-19th century! It now contains one of the world’s richest gatherings of classical and pre-classical artifacts. I have visited it three times, and have still not seen all the exhibits. In fact, when I visited it this latest time with Mavis and Warren, a whole new wing was open in an area that had been closed before.
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We taxied back to Besiktas (pronounced “Beshiktosh,” meaning “five rocks”), where I got out, sent the Hermodsons on the way back to their hotel, and caught a bus home, in the happy knowledge that we would be back together in two weeks for more Adventures.
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